September 2009

Faculty News

UDSA-ARS chemists Drs. Robert Vander Meer and Ulrich Bernier, at the Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology in Gainesville, are working with an American Samoan company to identify the active ingredients in the plant essential oil that has shown interesting repellency against mosquitoes and ants. Since the active components are not yet known, the rate of repellency may be very high. See the USDA news release for more details.

Dr. Andrei Sourakov (Ph.D. '97), Lepidoptera collections manager at the Florida Museum of Natural History, was recently appointed to graduate faculty status in our department. Dr. Sourakov and his work in genetic techniques for identifying butterfly species are featured in an article on the Museum's Web site.

The bees are busily buzzing! Dr. Jamie Ellis welcomed two new Post-Docs to his lab this Fall. They are Dr. Akers Pence (Ph.D. '05) and Dr. Ales Gregorc from Slovenia. In addition, Dr. Kamran Fakhimzadeh from Finland, working as a Post-Doc with the Division of Plant Industry, will be collaborating with Ellis' laboratory.

Dr. James P. Cuda was selected as a continuing member of the University’s Lakes, Vegetation and Landscaping Committee.


Staff News

On August 27th, several members of the department received sustained service awards and pins.

• Steve Lasley, Senior Systems Programmer - 30 years
• Jane Medley, Senior Art and Graphics Specialist - 25 years
• Nick Hostettler, Senior Teaching Laboratory Specialist - 20 years
• Oscar Hernandez, Senior Biological Scientist - 10 years
• Jay Cee Turner, Biological Scientist - 5 years

Catherine Zettel Nalen joined Dr. Jamie Ellis's lab as a full-time extension coordinator after graduating with an M.S. in August, from our department.


Student News

Ph.D. student Christian Salcedo spent two months this summer gathering field data for his dissertation at the La Selva Biological Station associated with the Organization for Tropical Studies in Costa Rica. He is currently gathering more data in Panama, where he is hosted by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Ph.D. student Harsimran Rosie Gill received a $100 Travel grant, a $250 Research grant and a $500 Student Scholarship from the Florida Entomological Society (FES) to attend its meeting at Fort Myers in July and to support her work. She also received a $200 IFAS Travel Grant and a $250 Graduate Student Council travel grant to attend the Entomological Society of America (ESA) Meeting in Indianapolis, 13-16 December, 2009.

Ph.D. student Gaurav Goyal received a $200 IFAS Travel Grant to attend the ESA meeting. He also received a $100 Travel grant from FES to attend its recent meeting.

Dr. Carl Barfield, Undergraduate Student Coordinator, recently announced scholarship awards for the Fall Semester. The list below includes the student names and source of the scholarship funds. A number of these students are members of the Entomology Club.

Mrs. Emily Torlak (M.S. '09), a recent graduate of our distance education program and a teacher at Eau Gallie High School in Brevard County, Florida, received the 2009 Achievement Award for Teaching in K-12 from the Florida Entomological Society. Mrs. Torlak developed 10 teacher lesson plans for teaching IPM in the science classroom. Dr. Rebecca Baldwin says these lesson plans will soon be available for downloading, and we will announce it in this newsletter.

Dr. Raul Villanueva was recently appointed as an assistant professor and Extension Specialist for the Texas A&M University AgriLife Extension and Research Center in Weslaco, Texas.


Publications

Nageon de Lestang F, Miller CW. 2009. Effects of diet on the development and survivorship of Narnia femorata nymphs (Hemiptera: Coreidae). Florida Entomologist 92: 511-512.

Cocco A, Jeyaprakash A, Hoy MA. 2009. Parasitism of the brown citrus aphid in Dominica by Lysiphlebus testaceipes and Lipolexis oregmae (Hymenoptera: Aphidiidae). Florida Entomologist 92: 497-499.

Hoy MA. 2009. Book review of: Krantz G, Walter DE. (Editors) A Manual of Acarology, Third Edition, Texas Tech University Press. Florida Entomologist 92: 526.

Denton JSS, Lietze V-U, Boucias DG. 2009. Host age and pathogen dosage impact cyst morphogenesis in the invertebrate pathogenic alga Helicosporidium sp. (Chlorophyta: Trebouxiophyceae). Journal of Invertebrate Pathology 102: 36-39.

Center TD, Cuda JP, Grodowitz MJ. (August 2009). Alligatorweed flea beetle, Agasicles hygrophila Selman and Vogt. Featured Creatures. EENY-462. http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/beneficial/beetles/alligatorweed_flea_beetle.htm

Lukhtanov VA, Sourakov A, Zakharov EV, Hebert DPN. 2009. DNA barcoding Central Asian butterflies: Increasing geographical dimension does not reduce the success of species identification. Molecular Ecology Resources 9: 1302-1310. doi: 10.1111/j.1755-0998.2009.02577.x

Li H-F, Kanzaki N, Su N-Y. 2009. Redescription of the drywood termite Incisitermes inamurae (Isoptera: Kalotermitidae) from southern Taiwan. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 102: 759-765.

Medal J, Bustmante N, Barrera J, Avila O, Monzon J, Cuda J. 2009. Host specificity of Anthonomus elutus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), a potential biological control agent of wetland nightshade (Solanaceae) in Florida. Florida Entomologist 92: 458-469.


Meetings and Presentations

PhD student Christian Salcedo was an invited lecturer for a Tropical Biology field course organized by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) for students from Butler University, Indiana. He also presented a workshop on Animal Behavior within the "Gigante" Tropical Ecology course organized by STRI in Gamboa, Panama. The course is offered to exceptional Central American undergraduates every summer. He also spoke on the nocturnal behavior of Heliconius butterflies at the Smithsonian's "Galeta" field station, near Colon, Panama.

The following presentations were delivered at the annual Florida Entomological Society meeting, 26-29 July, Ft. Myers, Florida.

• Gaurav G, Nuessly GS, Capinera JL, Seal DR, Steck GJ, Boote KL. Development of corn silk flies in alternative hosts.
• Gill HK, McSorley R, Branham M, Webb SE, Gaurav G, HansPetersen H. Comparison of three sampling methods for soil surface arthropods in organic mulches.

The following graduate students are members of this semester's committee: Roxanne Burrus, Rosie Gill, Ameya Gondhalekar, Gaurav Goyal, Heidi HansPetersen, Vivek Kumar, Corraine McNeill, and Teresia Nyoike. Seminars are held on Thursday afternoons in room 1031. Refreshments are served at 3:45 pm, and the seminar begins at 4:00 pm.

September 3: Dr. Nan Yao Su, University of Florida - "Mark-recapture for subterranean termites: a tool for population estimate or evaluation of population management?"

September 10: Dr. Kristine Braman, University of Georgia - "Understanding arthropod diversity and dynamics to inform landscape pest management."

September 17: Dr. Sanford Eingenbrode, University of Idaho - "Chemical ecology of insect-vectored viruses."

September 24: Dr. Jesusa Legaspi, USDA-ARS - "Life-history trade-offs and biochemical assessment of reproductive fitness of the spined soldier bug predator, Podisus maculiventris."

October 1: Dr. Russell Mizell, University of Florida - "A synthesis of stink bug and leafhopper behavior and ecology leads to habitat manipulation strategies and tactics."

October 8: Dr. Doug Landis, Michigan State University - "Harvesting arthropod-mediated ecosystem services from agricultural landscapes."

October 15: OPEN

October 22: Dr. Ludek Zurek, Kansas State University - "Microbial ecology of muscoid flies in two perspectives: public health and paratransgenesis."

October 29: Michelle Foss, University of Florida - "Essentials for graduate students: Literature reviews, database searching, and avoiding plagarism"

November 5: Dr. Lee Cohnstaedt, USDA-ARS - "Landscape genetics: defining Peruvian leishmaniasis vector habitat using population genetics, remote sensing, and geographic information systems."

November 12: Dr. Catherine Mannion, University of Florida - "Harmful Homoptera - pest problems in the south Florida landscape."

November 19: Dr. Tamer Salem, University of Florida - "Molecular studies of the Musca domestica salivary gland hypertrophy virus."

November 26: Thanksgiving

December 3: Dr. Marina Ascunce, USDA-ARS - "Population genetics of invasive species."


Grants

Drs. Jamie Ellis and Jaret Daniels received a $159,887 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to study native pollinators in Florida.


Newsletter Minutiae

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